Apple WWDC 2015 | Hacker News Reader

Apple WWDC 2015

developer.apple.com

145 pointsfolley105 comments

I was at the first one (though not named WWDC yet) in 1986. In the old days this was the funnest week of the year, as you got to talk with everyone and you learned a lot from the random discussions. I went two years ago and everyone sat/stood in long lines using various devices and no one talked anymore. I think watching the videos is enough now.

That first one BTW had 300 people representing virtually all the Mac developers in the entire world, meeting in a single ballroom at the Fairmont. Nowadays you have 5500 people that barely fit into Moscone West.

Do you remember the invitations? I received one around that time that was elaborately constructed out of layers of paper and looked like a floppy disk that fit in a 5" envelope. It was amazing how much effort went into that stuff.

I went to one of the early ones, back in '87 or '88. While we were there, they gave us a copy of the game Alice, that one of the original Mac team had written. I still have the game and the box!

http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Alice.txt

All of you make me wish I wasn't 5 years old at that time :).

There is plenty of stuff going on now that you have a chance to be a part of and contribute to in a big way. One day you'll be able to tell your own "back in my day" stories.

So true. I feel like now is an extremely exciting time in technology.

As fun as it was I don't miss that time at all. But you never know where things will go in the future which makes it more fun.

> everyone sat/stood in long lines using various devices and no one talked anymore

This is my experience with most conferences now unfortunately. Even when I try to talk to people who are waiting in line they will talk a little and then go right back into their phones.

I would encourage any student (full-time, part-time, university, high-school) who has enough of a grasp of making a half-decent/basic iOS app to try and get a scholarship for WWDC.

Being lucky enough to go twice as a student and have the ticket (but not flights unfortunately) paid for, gave me access to a wealth of like-minded young people and events that provided me with insight and opportunity that I would not have otherwise been able to get.

Please give it a shot if you can, and are eligible.

Jumping on, I definitely agree with sarreph. I was also selected twice (2007 and 2008), and had a blast. I'm not sure if they still do it, but they used to hold a career fair for the students as well. There is no way you will make every session you want to see, but use the time to meet people. That's something I wish I did more. You can always come back to the sessions later when they are online.

It was always a very tiring week, and plenty of times I just wanted to go back to the hotel to rest. Plus those chairs were a killer to my bad back. Looking back, I'm glad I always stuck it out.

So what was your take away after attending the conference? Genuinely interested and not trolling...

First I learned a ton more than I would have sitting at the house. Back then the videos were only distributed to conference goers (maybe ADC members too), then they opened it up to purchase access a couple of years later, now it's free. In 2007 and prior really the only sources you had were the Aaron Hillegass book (which still sits on my shelf) and a handful of scattered blogs or examples around the internet. 2008 was the year of the iOS App Store and a huge shift.

Networking was a huge thing that I should have done more. 2007 only had Mac sessions, with a few mobile web sessions. Nearly every big name Mac shop was there, in full force. Most of those shops have had to send fewer people lately, but they are still represented. Plus tons of new companies now. You'll never know who you might end up meeting. They offer plenty of time and places to do that while at WWDC.

The labs are the #1 reason to go WWDC. You get to talk directly to the engineers in charge of the frameworks. Bring them your app, code, and any issues you are having. For some people this is worth the cost of admission alone.

If you are just going to sit in on some sessions, I'd stay at the house and save the money. If you are going to network, use the labs, plus do all the extras like Stump the Experts, Design Awards, etc then it's definitely worth going.

Thanks for sharing. I didn't know that the Apple engineers were so accessible. Maybe they should run this type of conference more than just once a year, oh and without them marketing hype.

I wonder, can I take an app of mine that's on the App Store and use that? Because that's probably what I'm going to do.

I'm quite sure you're expected to create an app from scratch.

If you're familiar enough with making an app (as it seems that you are) then I would try your best to make a new app as the idea is to present an application that is about you — think of it as an 'app resumé'; done as creatively as possible, of course!

Last year, I made my app while studying for university finals that started a week after the submission deadline — it's not implausible ;)

I think to be able to apply for scholarship you need to be member of one of the listed STEM organizations. All of the listed STEM organizations seems to be only for women, black and hispanic. What about normal people from normal school?

I would recommend rephrasing as "What about everybody else from all the other schools?"

Your assumption is not true, please see below:

You must also be enrolled part-time or full-time in a course of study, or be a member or alumni of one of the listed STEM organizations. [1]

-- Key word there is 'OR'

I'm only replying to this in order to help others; I think you should strongly reconsider your use of the word 'normal', especially when using it in a way that could be misconstrued as a comparison against minorities or other groups of people, i.e. excluding 'women, black and hispanic' from being 'normal'.

[1] - https://developer.apple.com/wwdc/scholarships/Scholarship-Gu...

This is admittedly reaching a bit, but: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CCj9F0gUAAAkio-.jpg:large

In all seriousness, this could well be Apple essentially approaching Microsoft's original Xbox One strategy from the other end: Expanding from a video-on-demand streaming box into home gaming, along with a foray into live TV. And this is where it really gets interesting: By most accounts, Microsoft largely failed with their one-box-to-rule-them-all living room play because an HDMI pass-through and an IR blaster just weren't an elegant solution. But Apple, with their reported TV deals in the works, could offer the vertically-integrated cable experience Microsoft could only hack together. This could be a very interesting WWDC for the cable industry.

Most Apple watchers are pretty much in agreement that an AppleTV refresh is the most likely event at WWDC. The current ATV model was knocked down to $69 a short while ago.

Do you now if there is any speculation as to whether or not the new AppleTV will also serve as the HomeKit hub?

Yes. But "it's complicated" http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/8/7510647/first-homekit-devic...

Apple would have to radically change their own TVBox interface as their app model is even more inelegant than XBox for quickly switching and searching channels for viewing content. The AppleTV needs a better controller (Siri is not the answer). The best interface I've seen so far is FanTV https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKrowrz8fu4

While the whole WWDC site is set in Myriad Set, the WWDC15 logo uses (probably) a rounded version of San Francisco font (from Apple Watch). I haven't seen this rounded version of SF font before or anywhere in Apple Watch UI yet.

I predict an iOS based home hub with integrated Apple TV, Games capable, App Store, iTunes library, HomeKit, Siri. The epicenter of your home, hence the event title.

I'm not sure a home 'hub' is necessary, why can't HomeKit be a distributed service across all you devices? so your watch could still be a remote for the tv, or the lights, or the front door, or the toaster …

For HomeKit this is likely true, but I would still see it as a centerpiece for the home, also likely including Airport functionality.

I would like to be able to query device status and issue commands from across the internet. So some other device in my home will be acting as a 'hub'. So direct access sounds redundant at best, and more likely just a nightmare to configure and maintain.

(Change your wifi network or password? Have fun updating a dozen devices. Get a new phone or watch? Have fun pairing to a dozen devices.)

Beyond that, from a security standpoint, I'd rather smart devices didn't all have direct IP access. There are enough security concerns with the Internet-of-Things. Mitigating large swaths of those concerns appeals to me.

A) I hope they go for games, since in my opinion Apple Devices are much better suited for sophisticated gaming (the whole GPU incompatibilities and quirks on Android are a mess!) B) If they do so, I hope they partnered up. Apple just doesn't get games.

Would love to go again, but that $1600 is just too much to pay these days given it's all streamed live.

you're not going for the keynote.

you go to get hands on with the new technology, speak to the people developing solutions and meet other apple technology developers.

my friend went last year when they introduced Swift, the knowledge he gained from talking to the language developers is unparalleled.

Sure. but I'd wager the average developer wouldn't benefit to talking to the creators of Swift to the tune of $1600. If you have some very specific requirements and questions, it might be worth it. Otherwise, the video streams will likely suffice.

The "average developer" probably shouldn't go. If you're a dev shop, send your best, send the ones that stand to gain the most.

Anyone who's curious can always watch the material afterwards. They gain little benefit from interfacing with engineers if they don't have an application they're working on.

I guess it depends on your ability to manage/focus. The same Cisco CCNP training course (almost to the word) that you can get online from Udemy for $50, costs $6200 in an 11 day onsite format with Unitek.

There's a reason why Unitek continues to sell out their classes - and it's not because companies (which is who mostly pays for these classes) don't know about the video courses, but because they realized spending $6200 and having their employee 100% focused for 11 days on learning about network engineering has real value.

Presumably, the same thing applies to going to WWDC - you go there for the 100% focus, and you also go to (re)establish relationship, and for the social events.

All of which can be useful, but also had for much less than $1600. Heck you can get most of that for free in your own backyard if any hacker-event or similar is held there (most are free/sponsored).

I think events such as this do have an innate value, and have no issue paying for them. But $1600 is clearly a ton of money that could be better used elsewhere. Having a 10 minute conversation with a language designer is not worth $1600 in my book (and you can often find interviews with them on YT or articles, or get white papers).

It may not be worth it if you're bankrolling the $1600 yourself, but if your employer pays the fee it's essentially free and part of "career development."

I can't imagine talking to the developer of swift is worth 1600, but I expect the entirety of the networking options with other devs, journalists, and people from Apple is worth it. Having relationships with people inside apple is going to make it easier to get noticed, and if you do get some press or feature because of it then it's easily worthwhile.

I'm not in any way saying everyone who goes will get featured. Obviously not true. Just suggesting that developing relationships is the reason to go, and it could possibly be worth it. You never know what doors will be opened.

I wasn't referring to the keynote, the sessions are live streamed.

I know people put a lot of emphasis on contact with the Apple developers, but I think in the end it's made out to be more significant than it really is.

I've gone and shown them a bunch of stuff that wasn't working, and they were just like, 'good catch, file a bug report!'.

But really how much insight into Swift could he have gained from a ~15 minute conversation ?

Is it? Weren't there like a few books on Swift coming out just a couple months later?

There's nothing particularly special about books. They're written by ordinary people with no special access or knowledge. Any Swift book you picked up a couple of months after WWDC (or, indeed, today) contains nothing you couldn't get yourself by reading the official documentation and working with Xcode.

Agreed. What you're paying for is actually the 1 on 1 time with Apple engineers who will sit down and help debug your app, optimize for performance, etc. It's actually roughly $320 a day, which is fairly reasonable if you think about it.

I see this quite often and I always think "What are the chances that I happen to be working on a difficult bug in my app exactly at the time I go to WWDC?". Do people really have that many tricky debugging issues that they have two or three ready to ask an Apple engineer when the time comes?

It's surprising any apps get made really.

Also, your bug is going to be with the stuff they announced at the last WWDC, and there's a fair chance that they just came out with a bunch of new stuff that obsoletes it.

$1600 for a ticket or $2000 for an Apple device capable of watching their proprietary stream format.

It's usually just H.264 and there are open-source implementations of the codec: http://www.openh264.org/

Does the $2000 device still operate as a computer after the conference?

Don't they put it on the Apple TV?

A dime for your thought process...

The biggest advantage I've found to attending is the total focus that being there brings.

In other years I've watched the videos, but it's just not the same as going. When you're there, you're committed and (at least for me) it's about soaking in a semester's worth of information in a week.

Plus, you make stronger connections with developers you've maybe only talked with online. And the party is fun.

Version control for everyone.

"Change Epicenter for Mac. Never lose a file, ever again."

Isn't that what Timemachine already does?

Nope. Your hard drive crashes for any reason, Time Machine data is lost.

Think "Photos" for all your files. Think "Time Machine -> Preferences -> Use iCloud".

Time Machine goes on a separate hard drive. Your data isn't lost unless you lose both drives at the same time.

That said, cloud backups would be great to have.

One word: fire.

Certainly. I'm fond of saying that data that isn't backed up doesn't exist, and data that isn't off site isn't backed up. But just the same, Time Machine isn't vulnerable to the more mundane sort of hard drive failure.

So its going to yell at me every day because I have reached the free tier backup limit?

Presuming it follows the Photos model, you presumably will be able to easily turn off iCloud usage or upgrade to a paid 20GB-1TB+ plan.

If "Epicenter" is referring to anything in particular, which it quite possibly isn't, I would guess that it could be referring to a new Apple TV[1] being announced that will serve as a hub (i.e. the device in the center) for HomeKit.

[1] Could also be an updated Airport but Apple TV is more likely as 1. it makes more sense overall and 2. it is very likely there will be an update (Apple website currently says that it starts at $69 but there are no other models / configurations).

I'm hoping that dark, rounded square in the middle represents Apple TV!

If they open up the Apple TV app store and build a first-party controller, I think it could be amazing for indie games! We might even start seeing some genuine AAA-quality titles.

Any thoughts on what we'll see come out of WWDC this year? Or at least what you hope to see?

As a developer, I hope for a replacement for Cocoa and Cocoa Touch. A solid, fast, safe framework collection for both iOS and OS X based on Swift. It sounds like "Core OS" could be just that.

While Apple did a remarkable job by making all the Cocoa stuff available in Swift, a lot of Swift's strength only shines when used with frameworks that are built for it.

Epicenter of change? HFS+ has been the epicenter of unintentional change, right? Finally they'll start rolling out a next-generation file system: block level checksumming, snapshots, copy-on-write, ...

HFS+ should just go away and die...

Whenever there is a thread about Apple development someone pipes up and says that HFS+ is horrible. Can you explain why it's so problematic? I never once thought to myself that the filesystem needed an update. Ok maybe the .DStore files piss me off but I'm not even sure a filesystem change could change that.

> Whenever there is a thread about Apple development someone pipes up and says that HFS+ is horrible. Can you explain why it's so problematic? I never once thought to myself that the filesystem needed an update. Ok maybe the .DStore files piss me off but I'm not even sure a filesystem change could change that.

I'm not OP, but Linus had a rant in a Google+ comment on where he laid out his problems with HFS+[1]. John Siracusa also chimed in with a link to a section of an Ars Technica post he made titled 'What's wrong with HFS+'[2].

Linus' complaints seem to center around Case insensitivity and Inadequate Unicode Normalization in HFS. The Ars review is more damning (accusations include: undermining data integrity, metadata locks meaning only one process can update the FS at a time, etc) However, I'm not a FS expert so I am likely not doing the views justice: I encourage you to click through to the source URLs below.

1. https://plus.google.com/+JunioCHamano/posts/1Bpaj3e3Rru

2. http://arstechnica.com/apple/2011/07/mac-os-x-10-7/12/#hfs-p...

It happens rarely, but it happened to me already. Imagine you saved a file and backed it up. At some point (which is basically a question of time) your file gets corrupted. You don't notice it since you don't touch that file very often. After a year or so, you try to open it and it fails. Then you go to your backup only to notice that the corrupted file has been overwriting your original file and the deletion of older backups resulted in your original file being long gone.

Maybe you have a second backup? Have you ever had the opportunity to see a "slightly" broken hard drive continuously changing all your stuff by just a little bit?

Somebody's to blame, right? Well, yeah, basically it's the file system's highest priority not to break your data. And, of course, to tell you when your data broke. HFS+ is just not capable of doing that.

Then there's such things as RAID mirroring which really only makes sense if you know which blocks are the correct ones and which are the broken ones.

The second major thing I'd really like to have are Snapshots. There's not much to be said here except that I'd really like to easily create a snapshot of the state of a disk. Roll back easily, setup your new computer without hassle. Time Machine Backups kind of tries to do that, but it's (in my opinion) a real pain, although it does some things that are useful. What Time Machine tries to do, is essentially to emulate a feature that should really be part of the file system.

There's been a lot of progress on file systems but HFS+ is kind of stuck. HFS+ is basically an age-old thing that doesn't really have any more capabilities than back in the glorious Mac OS 8 days (Journaling was added sometime later), except that ever more stuff is put on top of it instead of improving the file system itself. Also, I really dislike the default being case-insensitive and case-preserving (apparently things break if you make it case-sensitive) but maybe that's just me.

If you ever get the chance, try reading up on ZFS (or give it a try with, say, FreeBSD on a server). ZFS basically shows the capability of a modern file system.

I think it is mostly Carbon apps that break with case sensitivity.

A lot of more recent OS X apps break with case sensitivity simply because they've never been tested with it. The fixes are nearly always completely trivial, but they still have to be done.

>Whenever there is a thread about Apple development someone pipes up and says that HFS+ is horrible. Can you explain why it's so problematic?

It's because of herd mentality.

Other people say it, so they must indulge too.

Besides they've heard about this ZFS and how awesome it is, so it should be used everywhere, even in laptops where it has no real business purpose (as an enterprise FS), and will consume CPU and thus battery life and eat into the valuabe SSD space.

It's like when fresh CS students learn about this assembly thing and how it's the lowest and faster layer, and then want to have whole OSes written in hand-rolled assembly because that will be the "fastest OS ever".

Is it a herd mentality if smart people on file systems say HFS+ sucks, and other people believe them? Because that's pretty much the case. If the herd follows the experts, that's a good thing, right?

To be honest, HFS+ does suck, and I'd like to see OS X default to something better. I'm a big fan of ZFS (it backs all of our production machines), but it does seem like overkill for a desktop OS. Something like HAMMER or btrfs might be a better fit.

And the list of sessions mentions "Core OS"... Let's speculate?

From the sessions detail page:

Core OS Providing the rock solid foundation beneath all apps on iOS and OS X, Core OS technologies provide networking, device to device communication, security, privacy, access to hardware accessories, location services, and much more. Knowing when and how to use these low-level frameworks is vital for maximizing your app’s security, reliability, performance, connectivity, and efficient power consumption. Learn to properly store, transmit, and protect sensitive data. Tune your code for 64-bit, concurrency, and multi-threading. Learn best practices for wireless communication, geofencing, local and push notifications, background processing, and optimizing your apps and extensions. Discover how to design world-class accessories and apps that take advantage of AirPlay, CarPlay, HomeKit, and more

Wouldn't that refer to the things common between OS X and iOS?

Definitely, the question is how deep those "common things" go into the OS, as the title states "Core OS" not "Core frameworks".

"Core OS" has been a WWDC track as long as I can remember, possibly even pre-dating the iPhone. It's likely not called Core Frameworks because the two do share an OS, just not the user-facing pieces.

Ohh, my bad.

Um, some sort of convergence between iOS and OSX ?

A niche where Apple has still not entered is that of hybrid laptop/tablets (or simply laptops with touch support), it would be interesting to see their take.

But this would require major changes to OSX ((which I'm hoping for regardless), I believe.

See sibling thread, unfortunately it doesn't mean anything and that title was used for years.

New graphics. New possible changes in UI for iOS?

"The Epicenter of Change". Really?

I know that HN is full of Apple fanboys, but even they have to think that arrogance is a little over the top.

Just read it as a San Francisco earthquake joke instead.

Biggest, most influential tech company ob the planet. I'd say its pretty accurate.

Biggest in what way? Number of employees? Sure. Revenue? Samsung has got them beat [1]. Also, influential is very difficult to prove definitively. I find that word to be very subjective. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_informatio...

The iPod (MP3 players revolution - everybody got one) The iPhone (mobile phone/internet always-connected mobile phones became a standard) The iPad (literally created a new industry sector...)

The ipad hasn't had that big of an influence - sure it's a huge industry and it's good fun, but people would have done almost the same things using large phones pretty well.

It's hard to argue Samsung are more influential a company than Apple when the look of Samsung's products are so obviously "influenced" by Apple.

I never said Samsung is more influential than Apple. I also never said Apple isn't influential. I don't know where you got those ideas from. All I said is, according to what I found, Samsung has more revenue than Apple. Also, I think the word "influential" is subjective. That is all.

> Biggest in what way?

Profits.

There was that news story the other day about how cellphones could be used to predict earthquakes...

Oh, no, is the marketing team doing marketing again? Better tell them to take the year off lest they offend someone.

Man, just as I'm about to consider buying a new macbook, another WWDC gets announced. I just have to resign myself to the fact that having paid full price for the previous generation of a laptop isn't a ripoff :-)

edit: Wow! I didn't think this'd gather such a strong reaction - it isn't really a criticism, I guess it's just that to me even things that aren't close to being obsolete feel obsolete when a new version is released, and it's a challenge to convince myself otherwise. That's how a lot of companies make money!

The DC stands for developers conference, they don't announce new hardware.

They announced new laptops at two of the last three WWDCs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Worldwide_Developers_Conf...

I stand corrected.

The redesigned Mac Pro was announced at WWDC too. Generally the higher-end developer-targeted things get announced there, and only the mass market products get their own announcements.

Not always — sometimes they don't (2014), but sometimes they do(2013: http://www.zdnet.com/article/wwdc-2013-announcement-recap-ma...)

I don't think you understand what the word "ripoff" really means.

Also:

Apple is pretty consistent with when they announce new hardware. So... there's that.

Just because a new iteration of HW is announce doesn't make the previous iteration useless.

Even the lowest end devices of a few years ago are still powerful enough for most daily activities. (Please don't reply with examples of where this is not true. I, too, can come up with plenty, but that doesn't invalidate my statement).

The current Mac Pro was announced at the 2013 WWDC. Yes, it's almost two years old now, and the base model is already overtaken by the iMac 5K in terms of basic CPU power.

Apple has held a WWDC every June for nearly 30 Years, so this shouldn't come as a surprise.

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